I wish Miss Hooker could marry Jesus
and that they’d adopt me so I’d be
the son of the Son of God, she’s my Sun
-day School teacher is Miss Hooker but she’s
25 and Jesus is so old He’s
immortal, maybe even God’s own age
if in fact He’s God to boot, some folks be
-lieve that though I’m not always sure what we
hold to in our church, at least what I hold,
I only think about religion one
day out of every seven and if
I thought about it every day of
the week I guess I’d be dead, my body
anyway, my soul would be in Heaven
or, more likely, Hell, I sin a good deal
for just ten years old. Then there’s the matter
of my parents, they’d have to give me up
for adoption, though I suspect Jesus
could force ’em to, which is kosher with me,
my folks don’t even come to church, they sleep
late and sometimes when I return for lunch
they’re still in bed and they’re not too pretty
when they finally come forth, Lazarus
-like you might say, smelling musty and slur
-ring their speech and frowning and sounding un
-grateful they they’re not really dead. Maybe
Miss Hooker and Jesus could have other
children, not adopted like me but from
their own bodies so I could have brothers
and sisters even though they’re not really
related to me but then again may
-be they are, Love thy neighbor as thyself
and all that Bible-jazz, maybe even
Miss Hooker’s related to me, not my
mother or sister or aunt or cousin but
if there truly is a human family
the maybe we’re a lot closer than I
realized, and I’d like to marry her
myself although I wouldn’t cut Jesus
out for anything but I guess in Sun
-day School I learned today, at least I figured,
all by my lonesome that if everyone’s kin
then it’s okay to marry someone of
your own flesh. Or something like that. Maybe
my confusion is the Crucifixion’s
purpose, not that I’m not still bewildered
but if I have to die, which I do, then
I won’t have to die for being baffled.
So I made lunch for me and Mother and
Father but for them it’s what they call brunch.
And it satisfied–they cleaned their headless
plates. When they went back to bed, I joined them.
Gale Acuff has had hundreds of poems published in several countries and is the author of three books of poetry. He has taught university English in the US, China, and Palestine.